Electrically operated hoists or load balancers are commonly controlled by operator manipulations of pendant control devices suspended directly from a hoist, such as is disclosed for example in U.S. Pat. No. 3,654,415 or control devices adapted for vertical movement with a load attachment device, such as is disclosed for example in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,921,959; 3,948,487; 4,026,526; 4,844,421; 4,917,360; and 5,480,125.
Control devices adapted for movement vertically with a load attachment device maximizes the degree of control an operator can exert with regard to accurate positioning of a load. A drawback of known control devices of this type is that they are designed to interconnect a load attachment device, such as a hook, with the load lift chain or wire rope of the hoist, and thus are required to have a strength sufficient to withstand a maximum load for which the hoist is designed to lift. This results in complex and costly construction, which is not readily adopted for removable attachment to lifting elements of the hoist, so as to permit retrofitting of existing hoist installations.